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Crossroads
12
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Exeter Times Advocate
Open house raises money for Rose Cherry Home
By Scott Nixon
TIMES -ADVOCATE STAFF
EXETER — Thanks to a
local Christmas open
house, the Rose Cherry
Home for Kids has anoth-
er $2,800 in its pockets.
Jeanie and Murray Lee
of Huron Street, in con-
junction with the Order of
the Eastern Star, held a
"Twelfth Day of
Christmas" open house in
their home Jan. 3-4,
receiving 429 visitors.
Rose Cherry is the late
wife of hockey commenta-
tor Don Cherry. A few
years ago, Rose lost her
fight with cancer. The
Rose Cherry Home for
Kids, being built outside
Milton, will provide pedi-
atric hospice care and
respite services for chil-
dren with life threatening
illnesses. The centre is
slated to open in the sum-
mer.
While Jeanie and
Murray Lee held an open
house three years ago, it
was on a much smaller
scale than last month's,
which saw every room in
their home decorated with
Christmas decorations and
Don Cherry checks out construction of the Rose
Cherry Home for Kids, which will provide care for
chronically sick children up to age I8.The centre,
being built outside Milton, is slated to open this sum-
mer. (photo/submitted)
ornaments. Thirteen
Christmas trees were dec-
orated, the majority of
them over seven feet tall,
including four rotating
trees.
As members of the Order
of the Eastern Star, the
Lees were approached to
hold a fundraiser for the
Rose Cherry centre. As
Jeanie explained, it took a
lot of work to get ready,
including nearly two
months of putting up deco-
rations.
The 13 Christmas trees
featured different themes,
including music, angels,
crystal, nature and snow-
men.
One of the highlights,
Jeanie said, was a tree
with a Victorian -era
theme. Included on display
were Jeanie's wedding
dress from 1961, her
grandmother's wedding
dress from 1915 and her
great grandmother's wed-
ding dress from the 1800s.
Baptism dresses from
1917 and the 1800s were
also on display.
"Every room in the
house was decorated for
Christmas," Jeanie says,
including the kitchen,
which featured electric
trains running overtop the
cupboards. Murray also
has an extensive collection
of the "North Pole" series
of Christmas scenes.
A guest book shows peo-
Murray and Jeanie Lee held a Christmas open house in their Huron Street home
in early January.The event saw 429 people visit their home and $2,800 was raised
for the Rose Cherry Home for Kids. (photo/Scott Nixon)
ple visited the Lee home
from places as far away as
Sudbury, the Ottawa area
and Windsor. Some of the
comments by visitors
included "awesome and
wonderful," "just great,"
and "breathtaking."
Murray said one visitor
came to the house three
times over the weekend
because she kept discover-
ing new decorations on
every visit.
The open house was
promoted by the 168
Order of the Eastern Star
chapters in Ontario, which
includes 15,000 members.
Jeanie is the province -
wide treasurer for the fra-
ternity.
Of course, the Lees, who
have lived in their Huron
Street home since 1983,
had help with the open
house. The Eastern Star
chapters in Exeter and
Parkhill provided cookies
and sweets for guests and
many people helped tour
guests through the home.
"Everyone just had a
wonderful time," Jeanie
said.
For more information on
Rose Cherry's Home for
Kids, check out the Web
site at www.rosecher-
ryshome.ca. To make a
donation, call 1-877-406-
7673.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
Have you ever wondered why
some properties are victimized
and others are not and what
makes one property more sus-
ceptible to criminal attack than
another?
Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design (CPTED)
holds some of these answers by
providing a common sense way
to improve the safety of your
environment.
CPTED is a pro -active crime -
fighting technique that believes
"the proper design and effective
use of the built environment
can lead to a reduction in the
fear and incidence of crime as
well as an improvement in the
quality of life".
CPTED works by eliminating
criminal opportunities in and
around your property. By get-
ting your property "right," a
criminal may avoid giving it a
second and closer look. This
keeps your property safer, by
decreasing crime opportunity.
CPTED need not be expensive
or difficult to apply and simply
involves taking advantage of
your property's natural surveil-
lance, access control and terri-
torial potential.
Natural surveillance
review
In order to proceed, start by
taking a fresh look at your
property's natural surveillance
potential.
• Are views from neighbour-
ing properties or streets
obscured by landscaping or
fencing?
• Are there any
adult -sized hiding
spots around my
doors or windows?
• Are there areas
of contrast and
shadow around the
building where
intruders can linger
undetected?
If you answered "yes" to any
of these questions, your proper-
ty's natural surveillance poten-
tial needs to be improved
Consider adding motion acti-
vated lights, reducing landscap-
ing, or altering fencing so
intruders can be kept under
observation.
Access control review
Take a fresh look at your
property's access control poten-
tial. Ask yourself:
• Do people routinely violate
my property and/or fence lines?
• Can this be done in an
inconspicuous manner?
• Do people access my prop-
erty in ways other than I
intended?
• Do any existing access
routes lack natural surveil-
lance?
• As a result of the placement
or existence of outdoor furni-
ture, equipment and/or utilities,
is there potential to access an
otherwise inaccessible window,
door or opening?
If you answered "yes" to any
of these ques-
tions, your prop-
erty's access con-
trol needs to be
improved.
Consider better
control of unde-
sired movements
onto and within
your property. Install land-
scaping, fencing or barriers to
increase the conspicuousness of
anyone breaching a boundary
or reinforce an existing bound-
ary that's already been subject
to trespass.
When selecting fencing or
landscape materials, take into
account maintenance require-
ments and the impact of
mature landscaping on natural
surveillance. For maximum
landscaping effectiveness, con-
sider a species with thorns.
Finally, keep furniture, equip-
ment and/or utilities, whenever
possible, away from otherwise
inaccessible windows, doors or
openings. Remember, access
control decreases crime oppor-
tunity.
A territorial review
Take a fresh look at your
property. Ask yourself:
• Do strangers regularly tres-
CPTED provides a
common sense way
to improve the
safety of your
environment.
pass on my property?
• Is my property being used as
a short-cut?
• Does my property ever have
an unlived-in or unkempt look?
• Are there underutilized sec-
tions of my property where the
public is invited and people feel
comfortable loitering?
If you answer "yes" to any of
these questions, your property's
design needs to be improved.
Take steps to rectify this by cre-
ating or extending a sphere of
influence around your property.
For businesses and resi-
dences, this can be done
through strategically placed
markers, flower beds, low
fences, walls, hedges, signage;
better and/or more timely
maintenance, and where the
public is invited, assigning pur-
poses to "leftover spaces."
For residences, don't forget to
create an "illusion of occupan-
cy." This is extremely important
in deterring thieves.
Accomplish this by making sure
your lawn is maintained, your
driveway is shoveled and your
circulars are picked up. Use
timers to control your lights
and have someone check your
property. And don't forget to
join and participate in
Neighbourhood Watch and for
businesses, Business Crime
Watch.
Target hardening
For maximum crime preven-
tion benefits, target hardening
should be applied with CPTED
principles. For target hardening
advice, please look over home
security.
CPTED's track record
CPTED techniques are direct-
ed against crimes of opportuni-
ty. Where these techniques
have been applied to problem
settings, crimes of opportunity
have decreased by as much as
90 per cent.
Interior applications?
CPTED is equally effective
when applied to building or
store interiors. CPTED's uni-
versality results from its ability
to help various disciplines do a
better job of achieving their pri-
mary objective. Designers and
merchandisers have discovered
the application of CPTED tech-
niques have reportedly
increased sales by as much as
33 per cent and decreased
security problems by 50 per
cent.
Maximizing CPTED
benefits
CPTED provides the opportu-
nity to design in crime preven-
tion and design out crime. For
maximum benefits, CPTED
should be applied at the design
or planning stage when these
benefits can be achieved at little
or no cost.